Researchers find sharp decline in poverty in the U.S. despite report from U.S. Census Bureau.

LEO Director, Jim Sullivan, and Bruce Meyer of University of Chicago released the Consumption Poverty Report for 2016.  Contrary to numbers released by the U.S. Census Bureau Tuesday (Sept. 12), Sullivan and Meyer show that poverty has fallen sharply in the U.S. in recent decades. The U.S. Census Bureau’s annual income-based poverty report provides data that inform a range of policies and issues affecting Americans, from taxes, to immigration, to trade policy.  Sullivan and Meyer show that while the official poverty measure shows a poverty rate of 12.7%, their more accurate measure shows poverty has declined from 3.4 percent in 2015 to 3.0 percent in 2016.  Download the full report here: Consumption Poverty Report 2016.